One day in the early 1970s, a child from the town of Guadalupe asked Socorro Hernández-Bernasconi a question: Mrs. Socorro, why do they have us in these classes?
Socorro was a counselor in the Tempe Elementary School District. She worked with Yaqui, Mexican and Mexican American children from Guadalupe, a small town southeast of Phoenix founded by Pascua Yaqui Indians.
She saw that the children of many Latino farmworkers and immigrants were segregated from their White classmates. The children spoke Spanish, and were assigned to special education classes for students with intellectual disabilities based on IQ tests administered by school officials in English.
Socorro responded to that child: You are smart. “You can read in Spanish and you’re learning to read in English. You’re going to be bilingual.”
Now 83 years old, that memory — of children who were failed by their own schools — still weighs on Socorro.
“That’s what they believed when they were put in those classes,” she said quietly, thinking of her young students feeling unworthy.
That moment marked the turning point when Socorro began a long fight for bilingual education, against discrimination and racial segregation, and to integrate Guadalupe’s Spanish-speaking students with their English-speaking classmates.
The statewide changes that came as a result of Socorro’s civil rights campaign, earned her spot among local leaders inducted this year into the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame.
The fight against school segregation
In the early 1970s, Socorro and her husband, Santino Bernasconi, led a civil lawsuit against the Tempe Elementary School District to end racial and ethnic discrimination in special education programs.
The state ultimately agreed in 1972 that tests to properly evaluate a child’s intelligence and verbal skills must be administered in students’ native language, prompting changes in education equality at the local, state and national levels.
“All except one of the Guadalupe children named as plaintiffs in the suit were removed from the special education curriculum at the Frank School and returned to regular classes,” according to the lawsuit.
The U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare’s Office for Civil Rights also concluded that the Tempe Elementary School District, which includes Guadalupe’s Frank Elementary School, was in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The law prohibits discrimination based on race or national origin in federally funded programs. In 1973, the federal government ordered school district administrators to desegregate Frank Elementary School.
But some of Guadalupe’s Mexican American and Yaqui parents “feared their children would no longer have school teachers and a school environment that would encourage the retention of their Native language and culture,” according to a 1977 federal U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report. They argued that they were not included in the desegregation planning.
Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame
Read here about all the leaders inducted into the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame. Founded in 1980, the organization is the state’s oldest dedicated to recognizing women’s achievements.
2025 Hall of Fame inductees
Angela Ruíz Tewksbury, public education advocate
Dora Kline Perry, arts reformer
Gabby Giffords, former Southern Arizona legislator and U.S. congresswoman, survivor of an assassination attempt
Josephine H. Pete, mediator and education advocate
Lillian Piñon Carrillo, social justice leader
Myra Dinnerstein, Founding director of the Women’s Studies department at the UA.
Ofelia Zepeda, member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, linguist, poet and educator
Rosa Bruce, housing advocate
Socorro Hernández-Bernasconi, education reformer in Guadalupe and activist
In response, they united with Socorro, her husband Santino and other members of the community to found an alternative trilingual and tricultural school focused on preserving their language and heritage in Guadalupe. There, students were taught in English, Spanish, and Yaqui. They called it “I’tom Escuela,” which means “Our School” in the Yaqui and Spanish languages.
Decades later, Socorro’s vision for education justice lives on in schools like Tempe’s Aguilar Elementary School, which also serves children from Guadalupe and offers bilingual education in Spanish and English.
Socorro didn’t just focus her energy on fostering more inclusive education and preserving the Yaqui and Spanish languages in Guadalupe. Santino, her partner in life and in activism, recalled how his wife organized with the grassroots Guadalupe Organization for the community to become an officially incorporated town in 1975.
“There was an election, and most people in Guadalupe voted in favor of founding a city, because Tempe wanted to take over Guadalupe,” Santino said.
This year, in recognition of her contributions, the town of Guadalupe declared April 24 as Socorro Hernández-Bernasconi Day.
“Ms. Hernández-Bernasconi’s work and efforts are considered groundbreaking today and remain legendary because she fought for the families and children of her community of Guadalupe,” the proclamation states.
A street in the town of 5,300 residents also bears her name: “E. Circulo S Hernandez B.” With a laugh, Santino said they only had room for the “B” for Bernasconi, his Italian last name.
A nun and a seminarian
On a warm April afternoon, sitting in the dining room of their peach-colored home in Guadalupe, the Bernasconis recounted the beginning of their life together. Santino said he was born in “San Pancho,” the colloquial Spanish nickname he uses for San Francisco, California. Socorro said she was born in Tempe and raised in Guadalupe.
They met at the Guadalupe church. He was a seminarian studying to become a priest in San Francisco and she had been a nun with the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood.
“Socorro had left the convent two months earlier — she was a nun for 10 years,” Santino said.
“A nun and a seminarian?” he was asked. “Now look at us!” he said, bursting into laughter.
They fell in love and married in 1970. They had eight children: “Sergio, Santino, Brígido, Armando, Herminia, Ramón, Rosa María, and Mario; one passed away along the way,” Santino listed quickly and precisely. Today, they have 18 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren.
As the couple spoke, Socorro held in her hands a golden pistol turned into a candleholder. A symbol of her community work to steer young people in Guadalupe away from guns.
In the 1990s, she founded Guadalupe Libre Alcohol, Armas y Drogas, or Guadalupe Free of Alcohol, Guns, and Drugs, a community group that encouraged youth to exchange their weapons for computers, bicycles and other resources. It was a tribute to her teenage son, who died in a firearm accident.
“We have to keep fighting”
More than 50 decades have passed since her days at the Guadalupe school. Socorro is surrounded by family photographs, images of César Chávez, and religious prints hanging on the brick walls of her Guadalupe home. Socorro’s long braid decorates the back of her blouse embroidered with pink flowers.
From school counselor to leading one of the state’s longest running bilingual, bicultural domestic violence shelters and serving on Guadalupe’s town council, Socorro says her path was never solitary. Her husband, colleagues, family and community all supported her.
“I couldn’t have done it alone,” she said.
Now, Socorro has been immortalized as one of Arizona’s most remarkable women. At a spring ceremony, nine state leaders, including the Guadalupe-raised activist, were inducted into the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame.
Years ago, she earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Dayton and her master’s from Texas Tech University.
She was one of the first people in Guadalupe to earn a college degree and the first Mexican American female school counselor in the Tempe Elementary School District, where working with children made her aware of the deep inequalities that existed in Guadalupe’s school.
Everything comes back to education, she said.
“I realized how smart these kids were. No one should make them believe they are less,” she said.
Socorro sees troubling parallels between today’s education system and the past. “History is repeating itself,” she said. “That’s why we have to keep fighting.”
She believes more parents and activists need to join the struggle for educational equity.
“There are some, but not enough,” she said.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
